For All Heart's Love
by Alassre
Summary: (Rated because it might offend people otherwise). This is about Rusco Winterborn, who's the second daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn. She falls in love--just as really strange things start happening. Will she find out the truth about her past before it's


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Disclaimer: _I don't own LOTR, Galadriel, Celeborn, or the other characters mentioned (except Rusco). I'm not trying to make any profit off this, either!!_

For All Heart's Love

Rusco started up, one hand grasping blindly for something that was not there. Then she blinked and stared around.

_Where am I?_

In Lord Elrond's house, of course.

She relaxed, and moved towards the window. Outside, a starry night cast its peacefulness over Rivendell, and the river sang softly to itself, soothing Rusco's feelings. She closed her eyes and listened to it, tuning her Elvish mind to it until her thoughts slowed. She had been caught in one of the long reveries of the Elves and seemed to have wandered farther than she intended, into a painful, unpleasant memory.

Yet life had not been unpleasant for the younger daughter of Lady Galadriel and King Celeborn, or at least not filled with more than the usual Elvish griefs: the passing of time, the loss of her kin, the insistent fear that she would have to live somewhere far away across the sea when the Elves at last left Middle-Earth.

_What was it, then?_

Rusco didn't know. She turned at last away from the stars and the stream and started to walk back across the room to her chair, but stopped when she saw her own face glowing back at her from the mirror.

Caught up in her feelings, it was hard for her to notice the beauty reflected in the mirror: the long glowing red hair with strands of gold intermingled, almost like a fall of autumn leaves; her deep violet eyes, sparkling with mystery; the delicate angles of her face, all as beautiful as the tips of her ears. Her face was pallid and frightened, pale as the starlight falling outside, or Earendil's light in a fountain.

Rusco stepped towards the mirror, one hand extended, and found the glass misting as she watched. Images struggled there, like a doe struggling to birth her young. She thought she saw something rise towards the surface and then fall away again, rise and fall away.

Was she seeing the surface of the sea? 

No, she realized, for in seconds the surface of the mirror cleared enough that she could tell what she was seeing. Lothlorien, her home, with all the leaves of the _mallyrn_ tossing as if in storm. Rusco's fear grew as she stared into the mirror. She had never seen her home like that. Even when violent weather marched outside, the power of the Lady of the Golden Wood kept the worst aspects of the weather at bay.

Fear and wonder dawning in her heart, Rusco watched as the image in the mirror whirled her towards the leaves, then into the wood, and along the pathways towards Caras Galadhon. The trees still trembled; she could see that even with the quickness of her vision. She would have stopped if she could, since the violent motion upset her constitution, but the mirror had her in its spell. She could only stand and tremble as she swept past.

Then the image alighted with shocking suddenness, and she realized she was gazing at her mother and father, standing beside the Mirror. They gazed at each other in that way that spoke more than words, their minds communing effortlessly. Galadriel put out her hands, and Celeborn clasped them in his.

Then Galadriel suddenly wrenched her hands free and turned away, and reached into her sunlit hair. Rusco saw the light flash from the Elven Ring on her mother's hand. Then it dimmed into darkness, and the image with it. Rusco only barely saw the thing that her mother drew forth from her hair.

It was a long knife, and the last thing Rusco saw in all that vision was a single flaring Eye on the knife's blade.

Rusco uttered a cry and fell to the floor. For a long time the trance gripped her, until the sunlight shone through the window and her fear and shock passed. Rusco climbed to her feet, glancing fearfully at the mirror.

Nothing passed within it. It stayed as cool and calm as it had last night, and Rusco could once more see her own face.

With shaking hands, she brushed her hair, tying it back into the thick braids that had become natural with her when her hair was too long to be contained any other way. Then she selected a dark green morning gown that set off her hair and eyes, and descended the stairs to greet Lord Elrond.

She had barely passed the entrance to the Hall of Fire when a searing pain exploded in her head, and she cried out. As she fell into a trance, she briefly thought, with a sense of grinding despair, _Not again._


End file.
